Pirate's Cove

Well, this is good news. The government is actually sending illegals out of here with authority

The Department of Homeland Security, continuing to enforce what it calls a “strict policy of arresting, prosecuting and jailing” illegal immigrants, deported a record number of those caught on the nation’s borders last year — more than 280,000 in fiscal year 2007 compared with 186,000 a year earlier.

It was the largest number of illegals ever removed from the country in a single year.

The increase is attributable to what veteran law-enforcement authorities said is a revised apprehension process, adding that the department no longer is targeting only criminal illegals for removal, but seeks eventually to apprehend, charge and deport all those who cross illegally into the United States.

Now, if we could only monitor the border better and stop the illegals, or at least most of them, on the southern and northern borders, limit the amount of folks coming by sea, and the folks who overstay their visa’s, we would be doing much better.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokeswoman Ernestine Fobbs said the agency’s Office of Detention and Removal Operations deported to 195 countries a total of 280,523 illegal immigrants during fiscal 2007 — which ended Sept. 30

That is very interesting. While the pro-illegal immigration folks try and paint everyone who is anti-illegal immigration as racists because of support for closing the southern border, it is shown that it is not just those who are sneaking across the US-Mexico border, but people from all over the world. If they want to attempt to come here legally, fantastic. If not, no lengthy hearings, no court appeals, just bye bye.

And, via Ace, we find out from the LA Times

Federal authorities are cracking down on immigrants who were previously deported and then reentered the country illegally — a crime that now makes up more than one-third of all prosecutions in Los Angeles and surrounding counties, a Times review of U.S. attorney’s statistics shows.

Gabriel Malor, writing the article at Ace of Spades: Illegal reentry is a felony under the Immigration and Nationality Act, with penalties that start at a fine of $1000 and imprisonment of not more than 2 years for first-time offenders with no prior criminal records and scale up to 20 years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000 for those who have previously been convicted of an aggravated felony.

Furthermore, Gabriel points out that prosecution is not really a deterent, as the chances of getting popped are small, but the point is that people should be punished for illegal entry.